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Name of Course: North Sami for beginners (steps 1-2) - Nordsamiska, nybörjarkurs, steg 1-2
15 HP of which about 7 HP spoken language skills - the part for which the tasks in SL were designed
Year/s and Term/s Run:
Year 2009, fall term (1. pilot - only few not well planned visits in the virtual world with some of the students)
Year 2010, spring term (2. pilot - some course activities in SL were announced on the course webpage in advance, the teacher was attending a SL course for foreign language teachers through AVALON-project at the same time, most of the teaching materials were produced during this period)
Year 2010, fall term - here virtual world classes were announced in the welcome letter and technical requirements mentioned in the course curriculum, materials from spring term were used and improved, more materials were created and the models were used on the Spanish beginners course in the spring 2011. Part of a Flexutbildningar project that ended in the summer 2011
Number of Teachers: 1 RL teacher (and 2 virtual teachers of which one virtual voice morphed teacher was used as a virtual "resource person" and the RL teacher had her own personified teacher avatar in the virtual world, both virtual teachers were controlled by the RL teacher), there was also one Sami speaking guest visiting the course every now and then during the first term
Number of Students:
Varied during the course from about 14 to 7 active students.
Any Website/Online Materials:
Synopses for lesson plans, images, assessment and an overview of the course are available online from the AVALON site:
In the Swedish context lesson plans and all teaching materials are the intellectual property of individual teachers. For this reason we are not prepared to share the teaching objects with any other universities without the consent of the teacher/s who created the materials . Most of the 3D objects were objects created (and therefore also owned) by other avatars in SL and that were given away for free. Since the teachers mostly used free materials owned by others, we cannot give these away to any other projects other than by sharing in SL with actual teachers in e.g. Euroversity project. Many of the teachers, technicians and managers who worked on the North Sami course are still involved in virtual world teaching.
We also rented the piece of SL land from HUMlab and since the rental contract ended in December 2011, we no longer act as "owners" of the Språkens hus area. This was also partly the meaning of our project, that is, to be able to teach in a virtual world without having to own any land or to rent any space for the courses. Those teachers in the original project team who want to use their own materials such as boards with words now possess the skills to put up their own classrooms, holodecks or other materials in common building areas. This was one of the most important goals when it comes to technical skill required by the teachers, since it was clear to the teacher team already from the beginning, that the project was only running for 1,5 years and after that there would not be any money left to keep up with the maintenance of one's own teaching area or buying new materials. The pedagogical goal was to make the teachers potential SL teachers without having to rely on a third party.
The idea was (and still is) to present a model for a task that can be easily implemented in existing virtual spaces and that could be modified to suit different languages and different language skill training. Our models are of course most suited for training of spoken language skills, pronunciation, and communicative and collaborative skills. We have not used SL for teaching of written language skills, grammar or reading, not as the primary arena. Some grammar practice has been done in SL, some of the tasks in SL also included understanding the written task and some visits were made in SL in order to motivate and stimulate the students to write a descriptive text for the class. Grammar training and training of reading in languages such as North Sami require that the teacher import materials to SL, and therefore this area of language training has not been in focus on the course.
Example of a model that can be used in any language for spoken language training:
The theme of the language class is arts, and more specifically paintings, sculptures and the artist behind it. This is a new beginner class and the main goal for the lesson is to practice oral communication, art vocabulary, pronunciation and presenting and discussing one's own personal taste/opinions. This task does take into consideration that the participants have limited knowledge of words and also the grammar, but this is also a class that will take place in the end of the course so that the students should have gained a basic vocabulary wide enough to be able to point out their favorite or least favorite paintings, sculptures and artists and to argue for why they have made these choices. For this task to be meaningful the students need access to a collection of different art works. There are several art galleries in SL that have different themes, show a great variation of works or for instance only display art from a certain time period. The teacher can now take a tour with the students or give this task in advance so that the final discussion can take place either in SL or in other virtual classroom suited for the occasion. Basic skills such as taking snap shots in SL can be useful if the students should meet somewhere else to discuss the task and need to exemplify their choices of preferred and most disliked artworks. Second Life, or any other suitable virtual world, now becomes the spring or well of inspiration and the source of supporting material for a discussion, but needs not to be more than that for successful language learning to occur.
Another way to exemplify the role of SL on this kind of language courses is the case where the students do not enter the SL themselves at all but either experience the virtual environment in a virtual classroom such as Adobe Connect or in a campus classroom when the teacher either uses the screen sharing function or shows the SL world to the entire class through a video projector. Second Life is the extension of a real or virtual class room and functions as support for the students who now longer need to "imagine themselves in an art gallery" which would probably have been the case earlier in this kind of language classes. Getting the actual glimpse of an art gallery can certainly give a whole new dimension to the activity that occurs among the students whether they now are themselves (alone, in pairs or in groups) exploring the virtual world and might therefore be engaged in several collaborative and communicative activities without even noticing it, or if they are in a real life classroom paying attention to the virtual environment that encourages the students to react and respond to the visual stimuli.
Pre-course preparation:
Decision making process
What was your starting point in thinking about the design of the course? For example, did you make use of any instructional design models from the literature or any other model, one you had created yourself, perhaps? If you did not make use of any existing models, what initial decisions did you take to design your course?
All North Sami beginner courses at Umeå university (Sweden) from fall 2009 and onwards are so called distance courses and classified as distance learning. 2009 the course was given solely through internet. From fall term 2010 onwards physical meetings are arranged three times during the course in addition to internet meetings. In the course syllabus it is stated that the students should be able to gain good spoken language skills as a result of the course. In order to fulfill the goals stated in the syllabus a need arose to find a common 3D environment in which voice chat is enabled and that can thus be used to convey different communicative and collaborative skills.
The final course concept is the product of a project examining Second Life as a possible learning environment on beginner courses at Umeå University, Sweden. The project is called Språkens hus (“House of languages”) and is financed by Umeå University Flexutbildningar (project for promoting flexible learning). This course became a part of the Avalon learning framework. Avalon learning has provided the Språkens hus –project with valuable insights into designing language courses in SL, the leader of the project has participated on a teachers course on Avalon, the teachers involved in the project have been given the access to teacher discussion forums and the Avalon learning area in SL as well as a possibility to get in touch with some of the foremost researchers working with language courses in virtual worlds.
In addition to the goals stated in the syllabus, important ideological goals have been driving the project. North Sami is an endangered heritage language spoken by a small indigenous minority group in Sweden, Norway and Finland. Language is one of the most important identity markers of the Sami. Because of the negative and rapid changes in the demographics, the younger generations now risk losing their native heritage language. The Sami live scattered all over Scandinavia, in cities and places where few possibilities to speak or hear Sami are given. The hope then is, that this course will encourage the Sami and anyone interested in Sami languages to maintain and revitalize this heritage language. Regular meetings, where spoken language skills are in focus and that allow people speaking North Sami to visit the group, should in longer perspective offer a way for the otherwise rather isolated language speakers and learners to improve spoken language skills and to find the courage to start speaking the language.
The teacher team did not use any existing models or theories. We worked according to the syllabus and the two main goals were to find a suitable virtual arena for training of spoken language skills and thereafter to create course materials for the courses included in the Språkens hus project. When creating the materials we did of course discuss the different learning types, task based learning ideology and the fact that we should create materials that can be used by students in groups as well as individuals (for those students who could not participate online at the same time as the rest of the group).
Aims/objectives
How were aims and objectives shaped by the general contexts of;
a) Learners (Including ages/language/locations):
The Sami course was designed for beginners at different ages but all being adults and university students. It was important to be able to accommodate individual needs as well as incorporate possibilities to group meetings and virtual face-to-face meetings. The students were notified of the fact that this course had more technical requirements than average Internet courses at the department. It was difficult to foresee where the students were located during the course and whether they could be encouraged to meet also in RL, it was also difficult to predict how flexible the students wanted to be with their time. This was and still is a problem, since we can't make regular teaching sessions obligatory and therefore can't predict how many will show up for the group training of spoken language skills. One solutions to this was to record as much of the classes as possible, but recording in several locations in SL turned out to be too difficult for the teacher who was both teaching and taking care of the technical support at the same time. This meant then that the students who could participate on the classes in real time had a learning advantage that made a big difference on the long run. Only few students who wanted/needed to be independent of the time did manage the course goals, these were students that could be called "false beginners" and all had some skills when they started the course.
b) Tutors (experience, skills, number):
Everything was managed by the same person. This was not preferable since some of the teaching time went to technical support. A team of teachers or at least a teacher and a technical assistant would have made the course much more enjoyable from the teachers point of view. One teacher only practice has also turned out to be very vulnerable since it is almost impossible to find a replacement with the same technical skills and who is willing to take over SL classes if the ordinary teacher is not able or has other tasks to take care of.
The teacher responsible for the course was also a student in teaching in virtual worlds at the same time as the course started. There has been a deep and rising learning curve for technical and pedagogical skills suited for teaching in virtual worlds for this one single teacher, but it has not been easy to pass on the knowledge to other project members who were not as active and willing to dive into practice. Teaching in SL does require some basic skills and the teacher must be able to assist the students in some things such as getting the voice chat to work in order for this kind of course to be successful. Unfortunately these skills can (in the opinion of the author) only be required through practice in SL.
c) Institution running the course:
Without the Flexproject we would not have had the time or money to start exploring SL. At the same time the course would not have been possible without the project or the money since the department had already made the decision that North Sami would be taught in most parts through Internet. The department has been keen on taking into consideration the special needs of the indigenous society and potential learner group that will not be able to come to the campus, but the result of the considerate education planning has had problematic consequences for the teacher who has been responsible for execution of the new courses. This has been very time consuming and many time a great pedagogical dilemma, since no such courses in North Sami have ever existed before. The department has been positive to the project, but as with most projects starting in the middle of the academic year, it was difficult, if not almost impossible to follow the time plan since no replacement for the teachers in this project were taken in to cover the hours.
d) Subject matter:
North Sami curriculum has shaped the objectives and goals of the course, but it has been the teacher who has accommodated the learning goals to the virtual media. It has been difficult to know whether all the decision made have been the best ones since there is not much to compare with in this field. It is not possible to compare e.g. a virtual business English course with 100 students (with basic skills in English) with a beginner course in North Sami that has barely got any teaching material even for classroom use and can have 35 motivated and interested, one's own identity seeking students of which maybe 10 are prepared to really take the whole course.
e) Other factors:
How will the mutual benefit of a virtual online course for students taking the course from different disciplines/universities/countries (etc.) be established?
North Sami courses for beginners can certainly be something that a student studying Finno-Ugric languages at any other European university might choose as their extra subject. Our courses can also provide a way to learn enough North Sami as to be able to study for example Sami narratives and folklore, or to be able to study Northern ecology (where understanding the nature, place names, traditional knowledge and so on may play an important role).
But the most important mutual benefit that I can see would be between the universities or university colleges that have North Sami classes. Teacher trainees in Kautokeino would get a great chance to practice teaching on beginners courses, our students would benefit from hearing different dialects, students that are applying for higher level Sami courses, but who have not got college degree, can study at distance first and apply for higher levels later. For Umeå it would therefore be most crucial to establish a network between Sami universities and colleges, maybe as a sub network inside of Euroversity.
Funding
How was the course funded, initially?
HPS
Are still running courses, how are they funded?
Same, HPS, no courses are running in SL at the moment since the teacher with the required technical skills is on a leave from the position.
Environment
Is the virtual environment open or closed and why?
The goal has been to create models and use different suitable and open environments. The initial space on HUMlab II was open to visitors, but we did not advertise openly that it existed since the courses run in that space were not open. Only accepted students could take our courses. I would not have blocked a person wanting to join our discussions or activities, if they would have done it in North Sami, but since the course is official university course, I would not have let anyone in who might have disturbed the class. When we used the other open spaces I would not encourage the students to make contact with strangers and I would always prefer more remote or "avatar empty" spaces since the goal of my course was to learn to speak and communicate in North Sami. The students did not welcome any distractions from the task either. If they wanted to socialize with other avatars they would have done it in their own time, but most of them did not visit SL other than for the purpose of learning or for completing individual language tasks.
What kind of preparation took place for learners to work in the environment?
All the activities were planned in advance and the description of each task was given to the students in advance in form of a document or if the task itself involved activities in SL, the document would then give instructions to how to go about to complete the given task. Sometimes additional materials (such as notes or photos/textures) would be passed to the students in SL. Some classes required teacher presence in SL, but not all.
Learners
Were students from other institutions engaged in the course?
No.
When a learner appears how do we know it is the registered learner?
The students that were registered on the course would have to tell the Avatar name to the teacher in advance. The teacher would also design some individual tasks for the learners for the first meeting. Then the teacher would get to know the students voice. On courses where SL meetings were accompanied by real life meetings, it was not problematic to make sure that the right student was attending the course. But on the pure Internet courses it would not be 100% certain to say that the person who attends the SL meetings is actually the person who is registered, but the probability of having a different student attending the SL meetings and being listed on the course is not very high on courses like North Sami, where learning a new language requires a great amount of involvement and in the end the student will be tested in spoken language skills in Adobe Connect, not in SL. Since we no longer have purely Internet based beginner courses, it is no longer possible to get a grade in spoken language skills without attending the course self.
Have the participants received previous SL training?
Students get training in the beginning of the course and are encouraged to explore SL on their own before the first mutual meeting. It is made clear to the students that entering SL and being comfortable can in some cases take time, if the student is not experienced in virtual worlds and needs to take all the tutorials in the beginning. But we do also tell the students that they do not have to learn everything for the first meeting, only to move, to find a certain location and to turn on their voice chat.
In which formats [video tutorials, workshops] did participants receive training and for how long?
Welcome letter, address on the SL website and URL to the tutorial on SL, Youtube films (a film was made, but it is now no longer up to date, we do not have the resources or time to make new films), instructions as documents (can be given to the students during a physical meetings, via e-mail, can be posted to the course web site or be handed to the students in SL as notes or textures).
Instructional video for North Sami for Beginners from 2010
Logistics-timetabling
How were/will virtual worlds be implemented, as blended learning, as distant learning, compulsory)?
Again, hopefully SL or other suitable environments can be made a "normal" learning arena on our beginner courses. This was and still is the goal, but a new teacher may completely disagree and the implementation will not happen at all. We can't make non-examination classes compulsory in Umeå. Only such classes, seminars, tasks or tests that are part of the examination on the course can be compulsory. But we do make it clear to the students that it is their responsibility to attend the classes and that for e.g. spoken language skills grade it is of course important that they attend each class and be active on the course. We provide the means to reach the learning goals, but it is up to the students to make the best use of these means.
How are the sessions organized (number of participants/ duration)?
We have until now had so small groups that we have been able to enter SL all at the same time. Those who have not had good connection or SL on their computers have been offered the opportunity to join "the action" in Adobe Connect through screen sharing. Until now I have been lucky enough to have had a couple students in AC and a couple in SL, so that everyone has been able to talk to someone. In a case where only one student is attending in AC I must ask some of the students in SL to join both AC and SL at the same time and speak only through AC. I have been forced to find many individual solutions and therefore I believe that this kind of a course would not be as successful if I had more than 15 students and was alone as the teacher and technical support. Or maybe I would have to teach the same thing many times, and that would mean that I would work extra and outside the hours given to me for teaching the course.
What are the needs of administrators/ course designers/ course tutors/ learners?
More hours, time for task planning and building in SL, a technical support person that can be in SL at scheduled times. - Most of these things will never happen which means that the course can't be developed or brought to the next level so quickly and the teacher will work long hours only driven by her or his own motivation.
All distance students should be given the choice of renting a good computer with good head-set and pre-installed programs needed for the course. This all for a reasonable price and with the promise from their side to actually finish the studies they begin. For this group of people there should also be a technical support center that can help at any time of the day (why not use informatics of computer science students for this purpose, many of them are up anyway and would surely be happy to get paid some little amount for taking the jour times).
Tips from other users on where to find the best and most suitable places in SL. - possible outcome from a network project such as Euroversity
But at the moment these things are not important since SL is not working as it should be. Too many technical problems, bugs in new SL versions, division of Viewer2 SL into light and advanced version, problems with voice chat, completely unrealistic costs of having one's own piece of land in SL, maintenance problems, graphics problems, lagging, high prestanda problems, security and legality problems, and many other issues make it very unlikely that I want to be using SL with beginners. They are the ones needing it the most and getting the best benefits out of it, but they are also the ones who should not have to fix the microphone for 40 minutes of the 60 minute class since they lose valuable learning time. SL has got and has always had tremendous potential, but this potential is soon lost.
What is the weight of SL tasks/activities as a portion of the course grade?
Around little less than a half of the course is dedicated to some kind of spoken skills training, vocabulary, communicative and collaborative skills, and all this has to be done somewhere. It seems to be possible to skip SL completely, but I have not yet been able to compare the outcomes. I am sure a good planning and full use of AC could give great results too, but if the teacher is not technically skilled enough, it does not seem to matter if the course is given partly in SL, AC or only in Cambro/Moodle. The qualities of the teacher seem to be very important as well as the course design and chosen technical tools.
What technical issues were experienced, if any? Most frequently experienced issues?
- Sound issues (which for us were the worst kind of issues).
- Problems with people not being able to move or orient themselves, or maybe even getting a bit noxious (not used to the 3D environment and movement in it).
- In the end also lots of problems with graphic cards not being accepted by SL or the new updated versions not functioning as they should have.
- Some objects getting lost or moved by unauthorized persons.
- Maintenance issues - mostly maintenance happening at the same time as the lesson was to pose to be and people getting lost or not getting in to SL at all at the scheduled time.
- Issues with people not knowing how to change their settings (e.g. how to hear only some people and not others, how to turn of media that was disturbing, how to take snapshots or where to save them, and so on)
- problems with the voice morph - does not sound natural when a woman wants to get a male morph
- sometimes problems with lag in AC (when sharing the screen and SL)
If there were technical issues, how were they dealt with/resolved? What were the most common ways of solving issues?
Some were resolved by the teacher, some were resolved by the students themselves after a careful study of the manuals or supporting documents and tutorials. Some problems could not be resolved. Those who had always some voice chat problems did not like this part of the course and did not show up in SL after the first couple of times. Those who had a problem free first session were usually more positive even if they had problems later during the course. Those who managed to solve their own problems were more positive in the end and some even said that they were proud of themselves and had learned may things besides the language.
Interaction
How was the interaction/communication between tutors and learners/learners and learners during the classes/outside of the classes?
Blended, sometimes there was a lot of activity going on both in SL and on the course site, sometimes very little. Most students who could not come to the physical classes felt that there was too little interaction between learners and learners. Those who did not come to SL meetings felt that there was little interaction all together (not very surprisingly).
Ethical issues
Did any ethical concerns arise (e.g. from students or tutors) and how were they dealt with?
Yes. I used a male avatar as my helper in SL. This means that I was present as my usual avatar (female) and then I was also in SL as a man. My students only knew that the male teacher was helping and was not real teacher but a reindeer herder from Finland and could not speak Swedish or English. The students would then have to communicate only in North Sami with him. This was not a problem during the scheduled classes, since I was usually there as both my avatars, but it did create a strange situation once, when I happened to be in SL as a male meeting Euroversity project leader and demonstrating my new voice morph. A student found my avatar on the map and wanted to talk about private life things in Sami. I could not reveal my identity, nor could I listen to any private details, which led to a situation where my male avatar just left SL very abrubtly. This led me to consider if I should ever user that avatar in teaching anymore. I did use him once more just to meet the students in a situation where two teacher avatars were necessarily needed at the same time. I have been considering telling this to my future students and only creating two female avatars that the students know are both me. Two avatars can come in handy if the students are for instance working in two groups in different parts of the SL. Doing this will of course make it impossible for me to pretend that I do not know any common language other than Sami, and the possibility to really spontanius interaction with the students will be taken away. I do wish I could use real life resource persons (e.g. teacher trainees) for these purposes, but until now it has been almost impossible to find first language speakers of North Sami in virtual environments at the right time and in the right place.
A snapshot from a situation where both teachers are present at the same time. Hanna Velde has Sami clothes, Aslak (the help teacher) is sitting to the right of Hanna Velde with his back turned to the helping boards.
Did any discipline issues arise during the course? How were they dealt with?
No.
Post- course
Assessment
Was there any formative assessment (week by week), if so, how was this done?
Yes, check the AVALON text.
How were any appeals against grades dealt with?
There weren't any.
Evaluation
How was the whole course evaluated (i.e. by what means-e.g. interviews?) and who did the evaluation?
I evaluated different parts of the course. There were different forms of examinations for the different language skills.
Were perspectives of different parties (course designer, course tutor, administrator, learner) taken in the evaluation?
No.
Evaluation of tasks/materials:
Were tasks/activities evaluated individually?
Some, but not all.
Was there any peer evaluation of tasks and materials in the course process?
No. Only as practice, not for examination.
How have the tasks/activities contributed to the goals of the course?
In many ways. All tasks support many goals of the course and those students who did attend to SL classes also did well on the course. Those students who participated on SL meetings, came to the physical meetings and took the whole course were also likely to continue studying the next course.
How have the resources/materials contributed to the goals of the course?
I don't know but I hope all the materials and tasks and resources have been relevant for the students when they are trying to reach the different learning goals. I have not been able to check if this is true. I believe that the tasks that I have personally been least happy with I have already altered and changed so that they better suit the goals of the course. But I am sure I could create more and better suited tasks too if I just had the time.
How has the evaluation been used?
The problem with evaluations seems to be that they will become important first when we know that a project or course or whatever it is has been deemed successful by for example the students and that the course is prioritized when putting time to new course planning. Paradoxically enough, good or average courses do not seem to be anybody's concern, and do not require further development.
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